Number of the day

$452 million

That's the value of retail products containing imported hemp that were sold in the United States in 2011. While a cousin of marijuana, the plant can't get you high. Instead, it can be used to make clothes, horse bedding, auto parts, soap and even concrete. But thanks to it being classified like all cannabis plants as a Schedule I substance - the same as heroin - the U.S. hemp crop is precisely zero. If you want to grow hemp and avoid a jail sentence, you need a permit from the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Hear here

"We don't ship glass around the world, we ship wine."

Richard Lloyd, global manufacturing director at Accolade Wines, on the move by the maker of Hardys, the best-selling Australian wine, to cut shipping costs by using giant plastic bags rather than glass bottles. Each 6,300-gallon bladder can carry the equivalent of 32,000 bottles of vino and can save Accolade as much as $3 a case. After the 10,000-mile journey to Britain, the wine is bottled at a plant next to a scrap merchant, two hours from London.

Heads up

Former Vice President Al Gore, above, speaks Tuesday at a Commonwealth Club event at the Santa Clara Marriott. Gore, who serves on the board of Apple and is a senior partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, will draw on his knowledge of global policy and the environment to discuss the key drivers that are shaping our lives and the economy. Gore is also a co-founder of Current TV, which was sold to Al Jazeera last month.